Sophistication of Online Tourism Websites in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study

er presents the results of an exploratory evaluation of the e-business readiness of operators in Hong Kong. The paper draws upon the web design, e-business, ion systems, and tourism and hospitality management literature to show that an ative evaluation process can be useful in moving towards a framework for the n of the sophistication of the online operations of organisations involved in the urism sector. The results of a preliminary evaluation of eighty online tourism s in Hong Kong is presented and the implications for practice and further are discussed. s: website evaluation, e-commerce, Internet, tourism industry, Hong Kong, terpretative, exploratory study e Internet has greatly impacted the way in which businesses compete and carry out their operations (Porter ally enabled changes have been a hallmark of the travel industry, with the early adoption of technological BER. In particular, the adoption of the Internet has accelerated the rate of change in the travel industry 99). This has led to changes in the way tourism organisations market and distributes their products in the lais & Licata 2002). Today the web based travel market is estimated to be worth US$8.3 billion in the Asia elbiz 2003) and represents one of the largest segments of business to consumer electronic commerce. The t currently represents the fastest growing segment, with China showing the largest growth figures. It is the historical background of the Hong Kong market makes its development different from that of Mainland these two markets become increasingly integrated over time, the more advanced state of the market in Limayem, Hillier & Vogel Tourism Website Sophistication 2 Hong Kong could provide some valuable indications of what is to come for the wider China market. Tourism is considered a main contributor and shows opportunity for the future development of Hong Kong’s economy. In Hong Kong there are approximately 1300 registered tourism businesses (TIC 2003) of which many are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The business to consumer market online has seen the rise of large online-only tourism operators (Cornnolly, Olsen & Moore 1998), such as Expedia, Yahoo, Travel, Travelocity, Orbitz, Uniglobe.com and Trip.com and consolidation of business to business systems into four main players (Kracher 1996, Truitt, Teye & Ferris 1991). This has meant increased competition for the traditional distributors of travel products, namely SMEs. Furthermore, a number of significant changes are taking place in the travel industry in the form of changing revenue sources, such as the withdrawal of airline based commissions, and the entry to the local market place of the large online-only operators, such as Expedia (SCMP 2002). This has greatly increased the pressure for local Hong Kong players to develop increasingly sophisticated online operations to compete and maintain their position in the marketplace. Hong Kong’s electronic services in general have continued to progress well during the last decade and have maintained pace with other similar economies within the Asia Pacific region. However, many in the SME sector have lagged behind. This paper provides an overview of the current state of play with regard to the sophistication of the online travel agencies in Hong Kong. Website Sophistication A number of factors were taken into consideration in the assessment of the sophistication of tourism web sites in Hong Kong including, interface, content, e-business services and trust as it relates to ‘organisational’ matters. These factors were drawn from complementary studies in the disciplines of tourism and hospitality management (Murphy et al. 1996; Bell & Tang 1998; Countryman 1999; Chung & Law 2003; Morrison et al. 1999; Jeong & Lambert 2001; Doolin et al. 2002. The sophistication factors are further explained with reference to their respective disciplines in the following review of literature. Interface Usability The usability of a user interface refers to the fluency or ease with which a user is able to interact with a system without ‘thinking’ about it. This implies they can do so ‘naturally’ or without feeling ‘discomfort’, either physical or mental. This is in line with the definition of usability offered by the International Organisation for Standardization, which is: “The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments” (ISO 1998). Studies relating to the user interface of computers have been undertaken since the early 1960’s (Hewett et al. 1996). Vast ranges of studies have appeared in the specialist HCI journals. A small sample of recent work includes: Sutcliffe et al. (2000), John and Kieras (1996), Nielsen (1990a), and Shneiderman (2000). Research has also been published in general information systems journals, examples include work by: Davis (1989), McKeen and Guimaraes (1994), Etezadi-Amoli and Farhoomand (1991), Doll and Torkzadeh (1998), Gerlach and Kuo (1991) and Doll et al (1995), the latter usually taking the form of user satisfaction. In recent years attention has turned to newer forms of information systems, such as, the Internet and World Wide Web. Some notable pioneers are, Nielsen (2000), Shneiderman (1997) and Mayhew (1999), all of which examine factors relating to design, layout, content and navigation structure.